


A Light That Never Comes

by EMMegs



Series: Reunion [2]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alive Nagachika Hideyoshi, Angst, Eto plays with her food a little LOL, Gen, Hide is a mess, Hide-centric, I didn't expect it to get this long, M/M, Reunion, Tg:re spoilers, fulfilling ending, he's just good at hiding it, spoilers are through ch. 86
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 15:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7719694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EMMegs/pseuds/EMMegs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So maybe letting his ghoul best friend make a meal out of his shoulder wasn’t the greatest idea he’s ever had. At least he’s alive. On the run, sure. But alive.</p><p>Or: what the fuck happened to Hide after the Sewers I mean goddammit.</p><p>-</p><p>“We’re going to Cochlea. Tonight.” He doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t ask who she’s trying to save. He knows. Hinami. Kaneki. Her friends. Her family. He doesn’t look her in the eye when she tries to peer into his face and adds, “I’m going to bring him home, Hide.”</p><p>His smile is tinged with bitterness when he says, “Make sure you bring yourself home too.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Light That Never Comes

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel-ish/retelling of my other fic Crossroads from Hide's perspective this time. Also I really wanted an excuse to attempt to explain what the fuck happened to Hide before Ishida tells us he's dead or something. 
> 
> Also unedited because I'm a lazy piece of shit sorry.
> 
> Enjoy!

After the Owl Suppression Raid, Hide, holding the gaping hole in his shoulder as if that will hold his blood in, stumbles back toward the surface. He starts hearing voices, sees a light, and thinks maybe, just maybe he’s made it out of this alive after all.

Then he realizes that it is not CCG flashlights in the distance he sees but the glow of kakugan. He backtracks—or he tries to. He stumbles, falls against a wall, stumbles some more, and finally hits the ground. He tries, he scrambles to get away but his arm won’t work and he thinks he has never _ever_ been this scared in his life. Not when he was facing being eaten and killed by his best friend moments earlier; not when his parents went away that last, final time when he was 15; not ever.

It’s the quiet realization that Kaneki might just be running toward his death, that Hide might just have failed him. That his hope, relief, _surprise_ , at being alive, though injured, is quickly being dashed as those red eyes close in on him.

He knows not all ghouls are evil. He knows that Kaneki is the kind of ghoul who wouldn’t hurt those that he loves without good reason.

But he knows that these ghouls are not like Kaneki or Touka or even Nishio.

They will either rip him apart and eat him now or take him away and torture him. And there’s no escape.

He closes his eyes and hopes that no matter what happens to him, Kaneki is safe.

 

He wakes up on a hard mattress in what he immediately discerns as what amounts to a prison cell if the distant screams are anything to go by. He shudders, both with cold and because the screams are haunting, horrible things.

Yet some part of him is still glad that it’s someone else and not him.

His shoulder aches and he takes it as a sign that, even though he seems to have been taken by Aogiri, he’s still fully human. He breathes in deeply to fight the initial wave of panic that sweeps over him when he tries to move and chains clatter. He shifts his head and sees his shoulder bound in bloodied bandages and metals cuffs around his wrists.

The screams get closer and Hide lifts his head to see through a small barred window in the door. He sees a head pass the door and it sounds like the screams are right next to him—a disjointed stream of names, cries, agony. Hide just barely recognizes the terrorized, bloody face with whitening hair as it passes by his door.

 _Seidou_.

He manages not to say the name aloud just barely as the other boy is yanked down the hallway.

He shuts his eyes tight and gasps in breath after breath as Takizawa’s cries fade the further away he gets.

Hide waits, unable to sleep now that he knows where they are, now that he knows what could happen. Kanou was working for Aogiri. Kanou created Centipede; he changed Kaneki. Kanou could very easily be turning abducted people, CCG agents, into one-eyed ghouls like Kaneki.

And not everyone is like Kaneki, not everyone reacts to torture like Kaneki.

 

“Humans are so fragile,” Takatsuki—One-Eyed Owl, Eto—says as she looks down at him. Hide schools his features into if not a blank expression, then a defiant one. She brushes a fingertip from his temple down his cheek. “You just have to know exactly where to press—“ she pauses to push a thumb against the bandages on his still healing shoulder, “—to get them to spill, to crack their minds open.” Hide clamps his teeth together to keep from screaming from the sharp agony that expands from his shoulder into his limbs, his neck, his head, his torso.

“Your dear Ka-ne-ki knows that better than anyone else,” she adds after licking some of the blood that had welled through the bandages on his shoulder off her finger. He glares at her. “I _know_ he’s your weakness, Nagachika-kun, Hi-de.”

He wants to yell at her, to scream at her not to call him that. He hasn’t given her permission to call him that. He often tells complete strangers to call him Hide because he hates the length of his name—both his surname and his given name. But from her lips, his name, his beloved nickname, sounds like an insult, a curse. The last person who called him by that name was Kaneki and she is soiling it.

He doesn’t say anything though, just lays there and breathes through his nose while glaring at her, because that is what she wants. She wants him to lose it, to scream, to cry, to lose his mind. She wants to see him fall to pieces in the face of the destruction of everything he knows, to spill to her his darkest secrets, his worst fears.

“Hide,” she purrs and he forces himself not to gag. “I know there’s something you want to tell me. You worked in the CCG for a year and a half. There’s no way you _don’t_ know something about them.”

He laughs. He laughs plainly in her face, a bitter, hoarse sound after so long in silence. “Your interrogation tactics suck,” he spits.

Her lips curl into a cruel grin. “Your investigator friend didn’t think so. Especially not once we turned him into a half-ghoul.”

Hide’s blood is icy. He glares at her with an intensity that would make a normal person cower but he says nothing. She can only mean Takizawa, though he does wonder how she found out they were friends.

“You have a knack for befriending the perfect specimens for the ghoulification surgery,” she laughs. “First Kaneki, then Takizawa, and… oh. Well. I don’t exactly remember his name but it isn’t important.” She pats his cheek. “I’m tempted to let you go just to see who you find next.”

He bristles. Who else had she taken?

She’s headed for the door and Hide has to wonder why she’s already leaving. “If you’re worried about yourself, don’t worry. You’re much too valuable to Kaneki to throw away like that.”

 _‘She must have Kaneki,’_ he thinks and the thought chills him to the bone, seals his lips shut with horror as she closes the door behind her.

 

He keeps hearing Takizawa’s screams. That alone is a kind of psychological torture. He hears Takizawa’s screams and in them he hears Kaneki’s tortured existence. Eto comes to visit him every couple of days, bringing with her a snack—one for her and one for him. He’s always hesitant to eat his own because who knows what she may have put in it.

“Where’s Kaneki?” he asks during one of the times when she’s almost companionable because really she bounces between subtle manic violence and near pleasantness so often.

She raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know,” she drawls, hand on her chin. “Probably dead.”

Hide’s heart lurches. He shouldn’t trust her. He knows he shouldn’t. She lies all the time. She could be lying right now. But there’s something in the set of her mouth, the crinkle of her eyes that tells him she’s telling the truth about this.

Which means he’s not here.

_Where is he?_

“Are you worried about him, Hi-de?” she asks and the mocking tone is back. He grits his teeth and settles back against the wall where he sits on his bed. “I am too you know.”

He can’t stop the sharp bark of laughter. “What an awful lie.”

“I am. Who else will lead my revolution?”

Hide’s lip curls spitefully before what she says hits him. She expects _Kaneki_ to help her. Expects _Kaneki_ to be on her side eventually. He purses his lips and bites angrily into the melon bread she’s brought for him this time.

 

“We could be friends you know,” Eto says another time when Hide’s been listening to Takizawa screaming for a straight 12 hours. He looks at her warily as she sits next to him on the bed. “Not friends like you and Kaneki. No. I would never eat my friends.” She leans down, very obviously taking a whiff of his healing shoulder. “Though you smell _delicious_. I’m sure Kaneki couldn’t help himself.”

Hide closes his eyes and a muscle in his jaw twitches. _She’s trying to bait you._

“Though it does surprise me that he left you all alone in that tunnel. I mean that doesn’t sound like the behavior of someone who _loves_ —“

“He does,” Hide cuts her off. “He does. You cannot make me doubt him.”

“Arima probably killed him in that tunnel.” He stares at the opposite wall and doesn’t look at her, doesn’t give her the chance to see his face. He can feel something sharp digging into his side ever so slightly but he doesn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing him squirm. “He’s practically blind in one eye. He didn’t know it was Kaneki and he killed him.”

The kagune in his side breaks into his flesh but he grits his teeth and bears it. His hands are shaking where they’re clenched against his thighs. “It would have been so easy for him. Just like it would be easy for me to kill you. Really that’s how poorly matched poor Kaneki was.”

The kagune leaves him and he lets out a gasping breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Eto tastes some of the blood off it. Hide tries not to cry. “Oh whoops. I always forget how fragile you are Hide-kun. We should fix that soon.”

She flounces out of the room and Hide wraps an arm around himself, pressing his fingers into the wound in his side. There are a million questions in his head. How does she know about Kaneki and Arima when he was the only one to intercept him on the way to face Arima? How does she know so much about Arima?

He’s forming theories—has always been forming theories since the day he was born practically—but none of them are making any sense. He tries to gather together everything he already knows and lay it out in his mind but someone is screaming again and his wounds hurt.

 _‘We should fix that soon’_ translates automatically in Hide’s head as _‘You need to get out of here soon.’_

 

“Let’s play a game Hide,” Eto says as Hide glares at her. “I’m getting impatient with your lack of trust so I’m going to promise you something… I will not let you be experimented on if… you confirm or deny my own theories about things that are happening at the CCG. Okay? _However_ , if you’re silent, I will hurt you until you scream. Got it?”

He swallows and she takes it as confirmation. “Okay. My first theory. Arima is not human.”

He doesn’t know how to answer. He doesn’t _know_ the answer. He has no evidence for either his humanity or his inhumanity other than his perfect kill record. His lips part.

“Too slow,” Eto shouts and brings a chopping hand down on his injured shoulder, no doubt opening the wound up again.

He lets out a cry just out of sheer surprise and tears come to his eyes as the pain strikes him. He fights to control his breathing as he writhes where he sits.

“Wow. That was oddly cathartic,” Eto says, delight dripping from her voice. Hide’s eyes clench closed and his head rolls back against the wall. “Next theory. A secret organization walks through their halls.”

Hide’s eyes shoot open and he reaches up to grip his shoulder as he glares at her. “Is that a yes or a no, Hide-kun?”

A kagune comes out and Hide rushes to say, “Yes,” before she can cause him anymore physical pain.

“Do you know for sure?” Eto asks, kagune still taunt. He looks at her and then away to the opposite wall again and shakes his head. She shrugs and her kagune slices at his ankle a little. His eyes snap shut against the burn of the cut. “I can’t fault you for that.”

“Next?” Hide bites out.

“CCG Investigators wanted to help Kaneki.”

Hide shakes his head automatically. Amon may have. Hide knows that the older man saw the injustice in Kaneki’s situation, that he was curious about him, but once Kaneki started hurting people Amon was duty-bound to take him down. Hide is almost completely certain that he was the only person at the CCG ever fully on Kaneki’s side.

“Cochlea,” is all Eto says next.

Hide scowls. “What about it?”

She raises her eyebrows. “It’s where they take the captured and milk them for information isn’t it?”

“That’s—“ _common knowledge_. He swallows on the words instead of saying it.

Eto understands and nods. “I also have a theory that ghouls with no more valuable information get smashed into liquid RC cells and are sold in that form.”

Hide draws in a tired breath. He wants to be done with this game. He’s paying close attention to everything Eto says because she’s actually giving him more information than she thinks. But her kagune is still threatening him and he’s still reeling (and bleeding) from the first hit.

“Okay. Last one,” she continues without waiting for his answer to her last theory. “The Washuu are conspiring with ghouls.”

Hide’s eyes shoot to her and she must read something in his face because a delighted little grin grows on her. “You think so too!” she crows and dissolves her kagune. Hide lets out a breath. He’s out of the danger zone for bodily harm. “Does anyone else suspect?”

He shakes his head.

“They have _everyone_ fooled?”

He doesn’t answer because at this point he knows she’ll answer the question herself. She practically skips out of the cell and Hide is slightly surprised not to hear the latch click on the outer lock.

 

Hide tests the door an hour later when the screams have started up again. He draws in a deep breath and turns the handle. It opens with a soft click and he breathes out. Hearing no footsteps, he steps out and closes the door behind him gently, twisting the lock.

He creeps down the hallway, eyes taking in every bit of his surroundings. The cut on his ankle burns and he can feel his heartbeat in his ears. He darts around a corner when he hears a door open behind him. He swallows, back pressed against the wall and waits for the footsteps to disappear.

He lets out a breath as they fade in the distance and keeps going.

He has no idea where he is or where he’s going but that’s never stopped him before.

He reaches a wide room and sticks his head in then blinks at what he finds. The manager of Anteiku rests in a glass tube. A couple of people in obvious white lab coats circle the room, gazing at other tubes full of bodies, writing notes down on clipboards. His brow furrows as he skirts around the edge of the room. It’s too late to go back down the hallway now and there are voices coming from the halls behind him anyway.

“It’s another floppy,” someone is saying off to one side as he nears another door, voice tinged with disappointment. “His arm grew back but it’s all wrong.”

“Ahh well. Take it out with the rest and dump it then,” another replies. He hears the squeaking wheels of a cart and dives behind the nearest object. A man in a lab coat walks past, pushing a gurney of some kind. His eyes widen as he sees a three-fingered hand strapped down and has to shove his hands over his mouth to stop himself from audibly gasping as he realizes that it’s Amon Koutarou.

He decides right then that creeping after the cart is his best bet at finding a way out of here.

He forces his breathing under control, mentally attempts to block out the pain that’s started radiating through his arm and side at his increased movement. He’s tailed investigators and dangerous ghouls. He’s slipped a tracking device onto the shoe of _Jason_ of the 13th ward. He can follow a human technician pushing a cart, bleeding wounds be damned.

He follows until they come to a stop outside a door. Hide peaks around a corner and discovers the human raising what appears to be a quinque over his head to chop off Amon’s head. Hide looks around wildly for a bat, a discarded weapon, a chunk of scrap metal, _anything_. He spots a wooden beam and makes as much noise as possible to distract the technician while diving for it.

Hide hears rushed footsteps and hefts the beam up. He throws all his weight behind the swing.

There’s blood and a smashed face. Hide staggers backward and drops the beam with a clatter. His arm feels like it’s _on fire_. He grabs it with his good one and bites his lip to keep from crying out. He hears a shout from somewhere in the complex. Amon’s eyes snap open as Hide approaches, now holding the technician’s quinque. He holds up a placating hand then wields the quinque carefully to cut through the restraints.

“Nagachika?” Amon’s voice is equal parts confused and bewildered.

“We have to get out of here,” Hide says in a low voice. He nods toward the door as there are a couple more shouts. “ _Now_.”

“Where--?”

“Talk later. Leave now,” Hide hisses as he grabs Amon’s… weird red arm and pushes open the door.

“Give me the quinque.” Hide looks at him, completely baffled. “I’m trained to wield it, Nagachika.”

“You—“

“Talk later. Leave now,” Amon mimics his words from mere seconds earlier. Hide shoves the quinque into his hand and lets him exit ahead of him.

 

“You think _what_?” Amon asks incredulously when they’ve gotten away, not without a fight.

“You were turned into a one-eyed ghoul like Kaneki. Seidou too.”

“Why not you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you feed them information?”

“No. I… I don’t know why they didn’t turn me. Eto kept threatening to do it but she didn’t.”

“What did you tell them, Nagachika?”

“I didn’t tell them _anything_.”

Amon sits back with a huff. Hide nurses his injured shoulder. They sit in silence for a while and then Amon says, “I’m sorry. This is… hard to understand.” Hide nods because he gets it.

It doesn’t stop their situation from being shitty though.

Hide leans back against the wall of the alley they’re sitting in. His grip on his arm tightens as the pain spikes. “You should go to a hospital,” Amon says quietly. “You’re still human.”

“Yeah? How do I explain this? A couple weeks old mauling of the shoulder, possibly infected; a stab wound in the side that’s obviously from a kagune… They’d call the CCG for a ghoul attack as soon as I stepped through the door.”

“And?”

“Did you have _no doubts_ about the CCG, Amon-san? None at all?” Amon wets his lips but doesn’t say anything. Hide continues, “No offense intended but I don’t trust the CCG. I never did. I was only ever there to find Kaneki.”

“Eyepatch…” Hide nods. Amon’s three-fingered hand curls into a fist. “He took off my arm,” Amon says softly and Hide looks over at him. Someone out on the main street rushes past the alley without even looking down it. Hide sighs.

“If Anteiku was still around we could hide out there…” Hide mutters, running a hand through his hair. “There’s gotta be somewhere…”

Amon looks up at the sky just barely visible between the buildings and says, “I think I know a place.”

 

The ‘place’ is Mado Kureo’s old apartment, which Amon eerily knows where a spare key is. “Doesn’t Akira come by here ever?” Hide asks as Amon pushes open the door.

“No. She’s been saying that she’s going to come clean it out and sell it since a few weeks after his death but she never did. I don’t think she can bear to think about it. We can’t stay long though and we have to leave it as found.”

Hide nods as he takes in the thin layer of dust coating pretty much everything. Amon glances at where he’s still holding his upper arm. “We should look at that.”

“I’m fine,” Hide bites out as he makes his way to the hall to find the bathroom. He remembers how Kaneki was right after his surgery right about the time that he started getting hungry. Amon will no doubt begin to get to that point soon too. He doesn’t need to tempt him.

He’s had enough of ghouls hurting him.

He shuts the bathroom door behind him and locks it. Peeling off what’s left of his blood-crusted shirt, he examines his badly bandaged shoulder in the mirror. He winces when he starts pulling off the bandage, unraveling it. He bites his lip.

There’s a knock on the door. “Nagachika, I have first aid supplies for you.” The doorknob jiggles.

Hide sighs and reluctantly opens the door to snatch the kit from Amon’s hands. Amon sticks his foot in the door before Hide can slam it shut. “Amon-san,” Hide says, putting his very best firm face on. “I can do it.” He doesn’t glare nearly fiercely enough to make Amon back off but Hide sees his nostrils flare a bit as they pick up the scent of his blood and that must make him nod and move away. Hide closes the door again and locks it, heart pounding.

When he’s fully sanitized and redressed his wounds, he unlocks the door and returns to the living room to find Amon sitting on the couch with his head between his knees and his hands clasped over the back of his head. Hide stops far enough away to run back to the bathroom if Amon’s hunger becomes apparent and uncontrollable.

Amon glances up at him and one of his kakugan is activated. “I…” he starts but he can’t finish. Hide lets his guard drop a little. His shoulders droop.

“It’s okay,” Hide mutters, heading into the kitchen to see if there’s anything decent in the apartment to eat. “I get it. Kaneki was the same way.”

“Is he the one who mangled your shoulder?”

Hide sucks in a breath and feels oddly defensive. Of himself, of Kaneki, of the entire reason he still stood by Kaneki. “It was me, not him. I offered.” The fridge is disappointingly empty but considering no one has lived in the apartment for months it doesn’t surprise him. There’s a couple cans of soup in one cupboard and a three month old bag of chips in another. Hide sighs and pulls out one of the cans. He’ll have to go shopping if they’re going to be there for any length of time. The thought of going back outside makes his hands start shaking a little. He curls them into fists and pushes himself back into what he was doing.

“How can you be so okay with it all?” Amon asks finally while he’s dishing his heated soup. “With him. With… this.” He motions to Hide’s shoulder.

Hide shrugs, thinks of his stubborn emotionally manipulative parents with a small frown, and says, “He’s all I have left.”

And maybe Amon understands that, maybe he doesn’t, but he doesn’t press the subject any further.

 

They only stay a couple weeks at most. Hide scores through his own mental list of places they could go but nearly all of them would be safe only for either Hide or Amon, never both. He’s sitting in the living room watching Amon try to suppress his hunger when Amon says, “I’m going back.”

Hide’s head shoots up and Amon shifts uncomfortably. “I’m going to figure out how to get stronger, how to live like this without hurting people. And I’m going to go back and find others.”

“What others?” Hide wants to react viscerally to the word _stronger_ because it sounds so much like Kaneki that it makes his heart physically _hurt_ but he suppresses it.

“Other floppies. You said they were going to kill me and dump my body when you found me. There have to be others.” He swallows and looks up at Hide. “And you’re not safe with me, Nagachika. I don’t want to end up hurting you more.”

Hide feels the room start to spin because he doesn’t want to be alone again. He doesn’t want to have to figure out the world alone. He doesn’t know where Kaneki is or even if he’s alive. He doesn’t know if the CCG or Aogiri are looking for him still. He doesn’t know where he’s safe or how long he’s going to remain safe here. Amon has been someone he could hang onto, someone he could rely on, however lightly, through this and Hide isn’t ready to be on his own again.

However, he knows that Amon is right.

“Pick a place you can stay, Nagachika. I’ll be fine on my own.”

Hide stares at Amon searchingly for almost a full minute then nods.

The next morning they make sure the apartment is clean and untouched and they part ways. Amon heads back the way they had come while Hide heads closer to the 1st ward.

 

He moves every month even though it’s completely unnecessary. No one seems to be looking for him but his own paranoia won’t let him stay put. He’d risked returning to the apartment he used to live in just to fetch some clothes and his computer and nearly ran into his landlord on the way in to clean the place out.

Of course he runs thorough scans on his computer for any trackers or evidence of tampering before he even attempts to turn it on. He would not have been surprised if the CCG had gone through every megabyte of his files. Marude certainly hadn’t trusted him enough to leave it alone or believe that he was dead. Hide was much too slippery for that. He turns the laptop on in a small café on the edges of the 4th ward and only leaves it on long enough to back-up his files on an external hard-drive. He then resets it to factory settings and takes it to the closest pawn shop.

Then he high-tails it to a library in the southern reaches of the 9th. There he uses a computer to make himself a new ID and plans to create himself a new identity under the name Nakachisa Hidetoshi. He decides he’ll eventually settle in the 1st ward, right under the CCG’s noses.

He swallows as he heads back to the apartment he’s temporarily staying in in the 10th ward.

By the end of the month, Hide has paperwork for his identity and has saved enough cash from odd jobs to pay for the first two month’s rent on a tiny little apartment in the 2nd ward.  

That’s where he first finds :re. He’s been living in his apartment for only a couple weeks and he’s found a decent job at a bookstore in the 1st ward. He heads into :re for a morning pick-me-up on his way to work. The place has just opened and he figures it might pay to try them out.

“One cappuccino please,” he says without bothering to look at who’s behind the register.

The cashier isn’t particularly paying attention to him either. “Coming right up,” she says and turns to make his drink. Hide looks around and fiddles with his wallet while he waits. His eyes catch a waiter with bronze hair serving an older couple and he narrows his eyes. He looks suspiciously like…

“Nishio-sempai?” he blurts when the man turns around.

Nishio trips over a chair and his barista turns around so fast _he_ almost gets whiplash. She stares at him and Hide stares at her. “Touka-chan?” he whispers and something in him feels like it’s going to explode with relief. _Finally_. Someone else he knows _finally_. Someone had survived.

She stares at him then says evenly, “Nagachika.”

“Thank god,” he breathes, leaning over the counter. She sets his cappuccino in front of him and eyes him warily. He thanks her, sets the money on the counter. “It’s great to see you, Touka-chan,” Hide says, eyes straying to the clock. “Oh shit. I have to get to work! I’ll be back later though, okay? We can talk.”

She looks at him then nods with pursed lips. He snatches his coffee and darts out of the café.

 

When he returns after his shift, Touka isn’t in sight. Nishio is standing behind the counter and eyes him as he comes in. “Hey Nishio-sempai!” Hide says with a wide grin.

“What do you want?” Nishio growls.

“Is Touka-chan still here?”

“Let me rephrase. What do you _want_ with us?” Hide looks at him and shrugs. Nishio’s eyes narrow. “I could kick you out of here.”

“Not like you haven’t kicked me before,” Hide mutters. Nishio smacks a hand down on the counter.

“You _do_ remember! I should—“

“Nishiki, stop it,” Touka says as she comes through the doorway to the back. “Nagachika,” she greets as Nishio scoffs and walks away. “Come on back.” He follows her at a slow pace as she leads him to the staff lounge. She settles on the couch while Hide takes an armchair.

“Touka—“

“What are you doing here?” she cuts in, look serious.

Hide’s grin fades several watts and he clears his throat. “I just…” He stops and slumps in his seat a little. “I’m glad you and Nishiki survived Anteiku?” She bristles slightly at the mention of Anteiku and Hide scratches his cheek a little. “Listen… Uhh. I dunno what happened between you and Kaneki but… I know you cared about him? And that’s enough for me. It doesn’t matter that you’re a ghoul or whatever. I’m kinda—“

“What?” Her voice is an icy hiss.

Hide falters a little but continues quickly, “I’m kinda hiding—?” Touka’s kagune is a threatening wing behind her and Hide shuts his mouth as soon as it comes out. He swallows hard. He closes his eyes and counts down from five in his head before saying anything more.

“Watch what you say, Nagachika,” Touka warns.

“I—,” he pauses and draws in a deep breath. “Look. I’ve had a lot of kagune pointed at me the last eight months. Honestly, I’m kind of relieved to just be alive because I was pretty sure I was gonna die the V-14 and then in Aogiri.” His hand unconsciously strays to his scarred shoulder. He’s not even afraid of the threatening way Touka is staring at him, eyes black and red and ukaku still spread behind her. Something in him aches for company, aches for his old life when he and Kaneki used to sit on that ridiculous whale, watching the stars. “I don’t… I don’t care that you’re a ghoul. Or… That Kaneki was—is. I just… My name is Nakachisa Hidetoshi now for god’s sake, Touka-chan.” Tears are clouding his vision all of a sudden and he sucks in a breath.

Touka’s defensive stance drops a bit and her ukaku and kakugan melt away. “You miss him,” she states. “You miss familiarity? You miss living?” He brings a hand to his mouth and he’s held everything in too long, tried to exist in loneliness for too long. He’s nodding but he’s not sure what he’s nodding to. He’s crying but he’s not sure why. He’s holding himself and crying in :re’s backroom while Kirishima Touka just watches.

He buries his face in his hands and Touka’s hand tentatively lands on his shoulder. “Where are you staying?” she asks softly and Hide is too relieved to hear the lack of guardedness in her voice to even care about the possibility that she could still kill him.

 

Hide and Touka become a lot closer over the next several months. Nishio is still as abrasive as he always has been and threatens to kick Hide’s ass every time he walks through the door. Hide always just gives him a shit-eating grin and asks for a cappuccino to-go.

Four months after walking back into Touka’s life, she helps him find an apartment in the 1st ward, just a few blocks from :re and his job at the bookstore. Sometimes Hide helps out around :re during their busier hours. Sometimes Touka comes by the bookstore to restock the single bookshelf that sits in a corner of :re for her regulars to borrow.

Sometimes when he comes by :re, Touka will be free and they’ll sit and talk over a cup of coffee. “Were you in love with him?” Touka asks him on one of these occasions. “Kaneki, I mean.”

Hide hums while he takes a sip of his cappuccino. “I could have been,” he mutters, eyes refusing to look at her. “But you know how Kaneki was. He was always too tied up in protecting people that he never let himself be with them, to feel for them.”

Touka nods and if she recognizes the aching look on his face she says nothing.

 

It’s been roughly two years since Anteiku and Hide’s mostly given up on ever seeing or hearing from Kaneki again. He hopes that if he survived, he’s happy. That’s all he’s ever hoped for Kaneki. He passes the window to :re on a cold February afternoon, waves at Touka and strides into :re. Touka greets him at the door, an odd occurrence as she’s normally too busy behind the counter to do such a thing. He looks at her weird.

“What’s up, Touka?”

Touka visibly swallows and she moves as though she’s trying to block his view of something. Hide scowls at her and easily glances over her shoulder. He freezes because sitting at a table surrounded by three young adults is what he easily identifies as Kaneki Ken. His hair is white with black roots growing in but it’s definitely Kaneki.

He feels all the air leave his lungs. Touka puts a hand against his shoulder before he can surge toward the table.

“Kaneki?” he whispers to Touka. “Where did he come from? Where has he _been_?”

Touka watches him watch Kaneki and says, “He doesn’t remember, Nagachika. He’s an investigator named Sasaki Haise now.” Hide sees Kaneki laugh, mouth wide and eyes bright. It’s the laugh that Hide had always been able to pull out of him.

“How… How long has he been coming here?” Hide demands.

Touka increases the pressure on his shoulder incrementally, her eyes are sympathetic. “Go on back,” she murmurs, “I’ll be up in a minute.” Hide’s gaze lingers on Kaneki and his smile a moment longer then he nods and tears his eyes away, going straight for the backroom without once more looking at him.

Touka looks after him and takes a deep breath before heading back to Kaneki’s table.

Hide is the first to admit that he is a complete mess when it comes to Kaneki. He has always been a mess when it comes to Kaneki because he would do anything for the man. Absolutely anything in the world. If it was something impossible, Hide would work until he found a way.

Touka has only begun to scratch the surface of that. So when she finds Hide in the break room with his head between his knees and his hands clasped across the back of his neck she doesn’t know what to do.

She approaches him slowly. “Nagachika?”

“How long, Touka?”

“He’s only been in a few times,” Touka murmurs, her hand on his back. She rubs in circles gently. “I didn’t want you to see him until I was sure.”

“He has absolutely no memory?”

“No, Hide. He remembers nothing of the first twenty years of his life.”

Hide stares at the floor, his teeth worrying his lower lip. “Is he happy?” His voice is so soft, so reaching and broken that it cracks something in Touka. “Touka. Is he happy?”

She wants to say no, if only to give Hide a reason to go downstairs and talk some sense into him, to try and trigger his memory of him. But she can’t bring herself to lie to Hide and she can’t be selfish enough to disrupt Kaneki’s happiness just for some shitty tragic memories. “Yes. From what I can tell, he’s happy.”

And that’s when the tears start. The tears start because he never thought that Kaneki’s happiness wouldn’t include him. But Kaneki has moved on without him and he’s left a hole in his heart.

Since he was a little boy all he can remember wanting is to see Kaneki happy.

But he never thought it would hurt so much when it happened.

 

He doesn’t ask her to, but Touka keeps up with Sasaki in Hide’s stead. He still goes to :re almost every day but sometimes he goes in and the man who is Kaneki but not Kaneki is sitting at a table, alone or with a subordinate. Hide’s heart hurts because sometimes Kaneki will look up at him and give a friendly smile to a complete stranger—to Hide—and Hide realizes that he really doesn’t remember him… And he will never be his.

Hide watches him from across the café while working on CCG research. He watches the investigator of the organization he’s trying to bring down and feels the guilt coil in his stomach until Touka sets a sandwich in front of him. There’s a scowl on her face as she says, “You’re pining again. It’s ruining the atmosphere of the shop.”

He laughs nervously and lets his eyes stray away from Kaneki to Touka’s deadpan face. “I—Sorry.”

“I get it,” Touka says softly. “But you’re just hurting yourself like this you know.” He nods and takes a bite out of the sandwich, expression thoughtful. “What are you thinking about?”

Across the café, Sasaki stands, leaving some money on the table. “Thanks Kirishima-san!” he calls with a smile that drives a spike through Hide’s emotional resistance. He doesn’t let it show on his face but Touka knows him well enough by now.

She raises an eyebrow at him.

“I just… It’s like I’m betraying him, Touka. He’s happy and working for… And I’m working against them.” He waves his hands in the air and flops on the table. Touka’s only consolation is a pat on the back.

“Try not to have a breakdown in the middle of my café,” she says with a teasing smile as she walks away. He knows she understands, she just doesn’t know how to help him. That was always Kaneki’s job. He shakes himself and gets back to work.

 

He keeps in relatively steady contact with Amon, acting almost as a base of operations for the half-ghoul. He often works from :re just to have the occasional companion, when he isn’t at the bookstore. He hasn’t heard anything from Touka about Kaneki for a while, not after she had shown up with a purple-haired ghoul who looked as though he’d taken a pretty bad beating. Touka had shoved him away with a look that said, _‘Ghoul only business,’_ and disappeared up the stairs.

Hide hadn’t asked. He easily connected the dots between what he knew about current CCG operations and his old knowledge of ghouls within their vicinity and figured out that he was the Tsukiyama heir.

He also knew that it was best for him to turn his eyes away to the fact that she was harboring him somewhere.

Honestly the list of people that Touka was hiding away was beginning to look like it could fill a book.

He hears nothing about Sasaki after Tsukiyama is brought in and then taken away to a safe house. Hide is sure that Tsukiyama must have told Touka _something_ about him, but she isn’t sharing.

Sasaki also doesn’t come to the café anymore, which leaves a whole different kind of ache in Hide’s chest. One that gnaws not just with loneliness but now also unfulfilled emptiness and worry as well. At least when he was seeing him or hearing about him occasionally, he could brush it off. With the proof that Kaneki was alright in front of him he could pretend that everything was fine.

But he doesn’t have that anymore.

And then Touka comes to him at his apartment no-less, dressed in what can only be a battle suit, shy and incredibly unlike her, and says, “We’re going to Cochlea. Tonight.” He doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t ask who she’s trying to save. He knows. Hinami. Kaneki. Her friends. Her _family_. He doesn’t look her in the eye when she tries to peer into his face and adds, “I’m going to bring him home, Hide.”

His smile is tinged with bitterness when he says, “Make sure you bring yourself home too.”

He doesn’t ask how she’s going to bring Kaneki home when he’s amnesiac.

 

Hide does his best to distract himself over the next week or so of radio silence. :re remains open only because of Nishio pulling extra-long shifts. Hide helps him out when he can but it’s not the same without Touka.

He’s looking over a (technically secret) report from one of his informants when there’s a knock on his apartment door. He knows there are very few people who know where he lives and even fewer who would actually visit. He’s anticipating but not quite expecting the face on the other side of the door. “Touka-chan!” he says, feeling his lips spread in a grin. Then his eyes trail to the side and he swears that his heart stops for just a brief moment in recognition. “Wha—?”

“Surprise!” Touka says, “I have a fugitive for you to hide!”

Hide can only stare at Kaneki as a vague ache starts in his chest. Does he remember? Or is Hide supposed to harbor his former best friend with no memory of everything that came between them? Kaneki curls his hands into fists and shoves them behind his back and his eyes are drawn to the movement.

“Any time now, Nagachika. Every second out here is kind of damning,” Touka mutters and half pushes past him. He jumps and steps back to let them in, closing the door behind them. Touka doesn’t toe off her shoes and that’s how Hide knows she’s going to abandon him. The traitor. “Goodness! How rude of me! Kaneki, Nagachika. Nagachika—“

“I know who he is, Touka,” he says and is surprised to hear Kaneki echo it. He absolutely wants to cry in relief because Kaneki _remembers_. Hide doesn’t have to pretend not to know him anymore. He looks at Kaneki and finds his gray orbs staring back. Kaneki tears his eyes away and shifts his arms again. Hide should be bothered by his three-fingered kagune but he isn’t at all.

Touka’s grinning in a way that makes Hide’s stomach twist because it lights up the room while simultaneously betraying him. “Kay. Good. Night then.” She waves and darts out the door before he can wrangle her into staying longer.

The most awkward silence of his life follows the closing of the door. Hide feels like he’s suffocating but then he remembers that he’s the one who’s supposed to end it. He’s always been the one to end it. So he takes a breath and dives in. “Well umm. I only have the one room so you can take the couch if you want?” He sneaks a look at Kaneki’s hair, a smile playing on his lips. He’s missed this so much he feels like his heart is about to burst. “Your hair is white again.”

“Yours is… dark,” Kaneki answers, eyes also examining him.

Hide’s laughter is barking and nervous. All he wants is to pull Kaneki into a hug. Why does this have to be _so awkward_. “Yeah. Well… I decided that if I stopped bleaching it, it would lessen my chances of being recognized when I’m out around the city.”

Kaneki nods and fidgets like he’s trying to hide himself. Hide’s eyes dart to where his three fingers claw into his arm. He has to make this okay. He has to or Kaneki will leave again. “It’s okay, y’know,” he says, gesturing to his entire person. “You. You’re half-ghoul, Kaneki. It’s just… part of who you are.” His finger strays to his cheek while he swallows. He feels like he’s walking on glass. One wrong word and Kaneki might be out the door, out of his reach once again. “I’m… really glad you’re home.” The hesitation is born purely out of fear that they don’t know each other anymore. That they don’t feel the same way anymore and calling himself home for Kaneki is too familiar.

Kaneki opens his mouth but only a soft choking sound comes out. Hide can see the tears in his eyes just before Kaneki covers his face with those weird kagune hands.

“Hey,” Hide murmurs, moving forward just a little. He wants to cradle Kaneki in his hands. Wrap him in a blanket and never _ever_ let him go again. Keep him until Hide is afraid he’ll get sick of him (never). Kaneki lowers his hands just enough to see him and _fuck it_. “It’s okay to cry, Kaneki.”

The dam seems to break then. The awkwardness kind of flees from the room entirely as Kaneki gasps, “ _Hide,_ ” like a prayer. “Hide. Hide. Hide.”

Hide lays a hand on his shoulder, sure this time and no longer hesitant because _this_ is right. He smiles.

“You came home, Kaneki.”

Hide tugs him into a hug and Kaneki’s arms wind around his back, knees giving out. Hide lets out a soft squeak as he falls down with him.

“Hide,” Kaneki sobs and his face is buried in the crook of his neck.

Hide can _feel_ the hot tears on his collar and it feels so right. It feels like three years of loneliness coming to an end. So he winds his arms tighter, buries his nose in Kaneki’s white hair and says, “Yeah. I’m here Kaneki. I’m not going anywhere.”

Kaneki’s arms squeeze him even tighter.

 

Hide leaves Kaneki to sleep despite wanting nothing more than to curl up on the couch with him and sooth all his worries away. He has the early shift at the bookstore in the morning and he honestly can’t afford to lose anymore sleep than he already has over Touka, Yomo, and Banjou battling in Cochlea.

Even still, having Kaneki in his house makes it difficult for him to fall asleep. He forces his eyes closed and just waits until he drifts off.

The dream he has is one that he’s had before. Of greedy mouths and hateful teeth scouring his body, stealing bites and teasing him with promises of a final death. His hands reaching for the distant figure of Kaneki while Eto tries to tear him apart. Pain in his shoulder, his head, his legs, his eyes. Kaneki’s crazed mutterings, his screams of agony, hate, anger, sorrow. Seidou’s tortured cries from the adjacent room.

There are glowing red irises surrounding him, pulling him under a sea of headless bodies. Bodies, which Hide knows exist because Amon almost became one of them. The heads roll down the rabbit hole with him and their cloudy eyes gaze into his soul.

Slowly they all morph into the parents that never cared for him, into old Yoshimura, Seidou, Akira, other investigators, Nishio, Yomo, Touka.

And finally, the heads stop falling and Hide sees himself holding a single head, one eye gray and human, the other red and black and ghoul. It has a shock of bloodied white hair and lips parted like they want to call out to him.

He wakes with a cry that he can’t quite muffle. His blankets are plastered and tangled in his legs, his arms are outside of the cocoon and numb with cold. He’s breathing hard and dry sobs won’t stop falling from his lips no matter how he tries to stop them so that he doesn’t bother Kaneki. He sits up and pulls the blankets up to his chin, trying desperately to stop his hands from shaking, his mind from racing, his breathing from slipping into a panic.

The door cracks open and Kaneki’s head pokes in.

Hide can’t suppress his jump of surprise. Hide swallows before speaking just to make sure his voice doesn’t crack alarmingly. “Kaneki, what’s up?” He thanks every deity he knows that his voice seems calmer than his insides turning themselves inside out.

“I heard a noise… Are you okay?”

Hide nods immediately, shakily, and shoves his hands down into his lap. He lies. “I’m fine.”

Kaneki, looking skeptical, bobs his head and mutters, “Okay.”

Hide cannot believe how similar they both are. He almost, _almost_ laughs. Kaneki could have a brick thrown at him that screamed ‘Hide is _not_ okay’ and Kaneki probably still would accept whatever he said. Kaneki starts to back out and close the door but Hide can’t possibly let him. He had promised himself it would be different this time. “Kaneki,” he calls and curls his shaking hand in a tight fist. Kaneki’s gaze jumps back up to him. “It was a nightmare.” He breathes a little bit then asks, “Come here?”

Hide sees Kaneki hesitate and holds his breath just in case Kaneki turns and runs. Kaneki leaves the door ajar when he moves into the room and sits on the edge of his bed. Hide brings his left hand up to his suddenly sore right shoulder. He breathes out, rubbing the corners of his mouth while he thinks of what to say that won’t scare Kaneki away.

“I… don’t want secrets this time, Kaneki. You can share things with me and I’ll share them with you, okay?”

Kaneki looks away from him and Hide feels like he has no control over the hand that shoots out and grasps his chin. Hide pries open that part of him that had locked away his feelings for Kaneki, his memories, the little desires to keep things from him so he doesn’t worry Kaneki even more. He pries it wide open and says, “Hey, man. I know you’re probably thinking about taking off again ‘to protect me’ but you don’t have to. You being away just… got me into more trouble.” He pulls in a deep breath, starved for air because this is the one thing he had never let himself do with Kaneki. “I’m… I’m trying to be more open. I promised myself that if we ever met again, I’d be open with you instead of hiding my feelings.”

Kaneki stares at him then closes his eyes as though he’s thinking. Hide watches him and holds his breath again. This is the moment of truth. If Kaneki leaves, Hide will ferret away the part of him that had hoped, the part of him that still thought _maybe_ they were possible, and never let it out again. But if he stays…

“You don’t have to do everything, Kaneki,” he says, trying to convince him that it’s the truth even if it never worked before. “We can do it together.”

Kaneki’s expression crumbles. “Hide.” His voice cracks. Hide allows the hope to swell in his chest against his better judgement. “I was so lonely without you.”

Hide’s breath puffs out and he grabs Kaneki’s hand. He pulls Kaneki toward him with the relief of a man taking his first drink of water in weeks. “What are you? A little bunny?” he whispers with a soft laugh. Kaneki smiles and Hide tucks him against his body, feeling the other relax more the longer he settles there. His hands idly rub circles in his back.

“Hey uhh… There’s enough room on the bed if you want to stay here,” he says quietly.

Kaneki nods. Hide draws away so he can lie down closer to the wall. Kaneki settles near the edge and gazes at him. Kaneki’s eyes are a sleepy storm and Hide’s grossly aware of how easy it would be to just take his hand, his strangely beautiful three-fingered claws. Kaneki’s eyes start to drift closed.

“Hey, Kaneki?” he says because it’s been weighing on his soul and if there’s anything that he wants Kaneki to know it is this.

“Hmmm?” It’s a very sleepy hum that exits Kaneki’s throat.

“I missed you, man.”

Hide swallows and takes hold of just one of Kaneki’s three fingers. Kaneki’s eyes open slowly and he blinks at him before he curls his fingers around Hide’s.

“I missed you too,” Kaneki croaks.

Hide smiles and lets his eyes drift closed.

His heart feels warm and he has no nightmares because Kaneki is back.

He’s back and he’s staying.


End file.
